Program NotesLocation (grandparent | parent | this page): RodMer Arts Home Page | Rod's Music | For Ellen Program Notes
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The BasicsBach once wrote a fugue set to his name B-A-C-H (well, actually there's some dispute as to whether he wrote it or someone selse -- but anyway, it was written). 'Huh?' you ask. The piano keys only go ABCDEFG; so how do we get an H? Well, in Old German the B was taken to mean B-flat, while the H was taken to mean B-natural (which is why the symbol for a flat is a little b and the natural sign is a sort of distorted h). Hey, but you didn't want to know all this, right?
But there's an easier way to assign the letters of the alphabet to the piano keys. Once we run out of the keys in the scale (from A to G), let's just use the next letter (H) to mean an A an octave higher, and the letter after that (I) to mean a B an octave higher - and so on. It's intuitive to think of all the later letters as being a repeat of the orginal seven (A to G) but at a higher octave (so if ABCDEFG is the first octave, then HIJKLMN is the next octave, and so on). Now, using this scheme, this piece is a theme and three variations built on the name ELLEN, which can be de-constructed into the notes E - high_E - high_E - E - high_G. The piece was written for Ellen's 30th birthday or something -- and so the ELLEN motif occurs 30 times -- well, actually only 28 -- but the last 2 times are provided by a punning reference to Schubert's Forellen Quintet.
The question is: how does one build a piece around these five somewhat disjointed notes? This is my attempt.
This 5-minute piece consists of the principal theme (played twice) followed by Variations A, B, and C -- with a return of the principal theme at the end. The three variations all use the same ELLEN motif but in different rhythms and textures -- because, of course, there are umpteen different moods and textures to each individual person (who wants to be consistent?).
The premiere performance was given on the occasion of a surprise birthday party for our good friend Ellen Eisenberg at C'Est What in Toronto.
Piano: Rod Anderson
February 8, 1998 at the Art Gallery of Northumberland (in Cobourg, ON, Canada)
As part of a mini-concert accompanying the walking tour of the Merike Lugus sculpture show Transient States - again with me at the piano.
A third performance was given (again with me on piano) at the Bamboo Club in Toronto on April 14, 1998 as part of the launch of Merike Lugus's new book of poetry Ophelia After Centuries of Trying.
A fourth performance was given in Trinity United Church in Cobourg ON (again me on piano) on October 4, 1998 at the Cobourg Celebration Concert of the Northumberland Orchestra (celebrating the 200th anniversary of the settlement of Cobourg).
MIDI files are provided both for (1) the computer/synthesizer simply playing the notated score (with a fair amount of tweaking by me to build in as live-as-possible dynamics changes and tempo changes) and (2) a live performance by me (recorded directly onto MIDI) and mp3 files are provided for the latter live performance. The computer performance may be a little cleaner (the computer doesn't hit any wrong notes) but the live performance is (hopefully) a little more expressive.
Like all the MIDI files here, it is in General MIDI form. The General MIDI patch (on the 0-127 numbering system) is:
| Part | General MIDI patch | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| name | # | ||
| Piano | Bright Acoustic Piano | 1 | |
On my own synth I used the following patch:
| Part | Sound Module | Patch | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| name | # | |||
| Piano | Roland RD500 | Gr Piano A1 | 0 | |
Structure notes| Theme Section | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Intro in C major |
| 5 | Theme in C major |
| 13 | Theme repeated |
| Variation A Section | |
| 21 | Variation A in C major |
| 29 | Variation A repeated |
| Variation B Section | |
| 36 | Bridge |
| 40 | Variation B in A minor |
| 48 | Variation B repeated |
| 59 | Bridge |
| 67 | Variation B repeated |
| Variation C Section | |
| 73 | Bridge |
| 81 | Variation C (waltz) in C major (part 1) |
| 97 | Variation C (part 2) |
| 105 | Schubert Forellen Suite quotation |
| 113 | Forellen Suite quotation repeated |
| 121 | Variation C (part 1) repeated |
| Theme Section | |
| 137 | Theme in C major |
| 149 | Coda |
| Year | Title ... Instrumentation ...... Excerpts | Min: Sec |
Complete MP3 files (better sound)** file size |
MP3 file extracts (better sound)** file size |
Complete MIDI file (not as good sound but quick)** |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The complete piece (computer-played): | |||||
| 1997 | For Ellen ... piano solo (computer-played) |
5:04 | na | ||
| How the MIDI file sounds depends, of course, on your playback mechanism. On my computer, MIDI files are played by the QuickTime PlugIn and the piano sound is a little pingy. (Hear, for comparison, the mellower mp3 files of the 'live' performance below.) Of course, if you have a synthesizer, you can download the MIDI file and set the instrument to your own preferred patch -- but that's more work than downloading the complete mp3 file of the 'live' performance below.. | |||||
** If you have a high-speed connection, forget about the MIDI files and just use the MP3 files (better). If you have a dial-up connection, consider the faster (but not as good) MIDI file only if the MP3 files seem to be taking too long to play or download.
| Year | Title ... Instrumentation ...... Excerpts | Min: Sec |
Complete MP3 files (better sound)** file size |
MP3 file extracts (better sound)** file size |
Complete MIDI file (not as good sound but quick)** |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The complete piece (live performance): | |||||
| 1997 | For Ellen ... piano solo (live performance) |
5:01 |  3.4 MB |
||
| This "live performance" was simply me playing live onto the synth keyboard and capturing the result to produce the related MIDI and mp3 files. Again, the mp3 file sounds much better thatn the usual embedded MIDI playback. | |||||
| |||||
| Short excerpts (live performance): | |||||
| ...... Intro & Main Theme | 0:40 | 0.4 MB |
|||
| This mp3 file of the beginning of the piece (Intro and Main Theme) is hopefully a little more natural timing as well as a mellower sound than the computer-played MIDI file above. | |||||
| ...... Variation B | 0:37 | 0.4 MB |
|||
| This mp3 excerpt is of Variation B. (Variation A is not covered in these excerpts) -- again, a better piano sound. | |||||
| ...... Variation C | 0:25 | 0.2 MB |
|||
| This mp3 excerpt is of Variation C -- again, a better piano sound (particularly the bass). | |||||
| ...... Closing (Theme & Coda) | 1:09 | 0.7 MB |
|||
| This mp3 file covers the closing of the piece -- a final restatement of the main theme followed by a coda. | |||||
** If you have a high-speed connection, forget about the MIDI files and just use the MP3 files (better). If you have a dial-up connection, consider the faster (but not as good) MIDI file only if the MP3 files seem to be taking too long to play or download.
| Year | Title ... Instrumentation | Description | No. of score pages |
Score (pdf file) file size |
No. of text pages |
Text (rtf file) file size |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | For Ellen ... piano solo |
Piano score | 10 |  0.2 MB |
4 |  68 KB |